


Between

by necrobotanical



Category: Outer Wilds (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Major Spoilers, Second Person, all i can write is second person, and at this point just wants a nap, and to stop with the wormholes, esker is everyone’s parent, homestuck ruined me, idk what else to tag pretty much everything is a spoiler, protag really hates the dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2020-07-12 17:36:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19950190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/necrobotanical/pseuds/necrobotanical
Summary: Between the end and the beginning, there's a forest.





	1. After the End

This forest can't exist. It's a paradox. A violation of every law of the universe.  
The forest, apparently, doesn't give a fuck. To be fair, there isn't any reason why it should, anymore. For there to be laws of the universe, there has to be a universe, and... well, suffice to say there isn't one. 

The Nomai noticed first. Records, inscribed in a wrecked Vessel, detailed how one (scientist? Captain? You aren't sure.) noticed that there were fewer and fewer safe systems; that most stars were unstable, dying, that no new stars were born. Their flippant use of black and white holes must have only been possible due to the looser policing of the laws of physics as the universe decided to enjoy its retirement. It's funny - everyone had been so sure that researching Nomai technology would unlock a bright new future for Outer Wilds Ventures, a better future for everyone. All it did was reveal that there wouldn't be one.

You're drawn out of your musings by a familiar crackle - your signalscope, somehow still functional after falling through the eye of the universe, and out the other side. Steeling yourself for more creepy noises in this quite frankly horrifying forest, you press on. When you sweep the signalscope to the source, you stop dead. Simple sounds, small sights; they're what really drive an event home. What make you realise the full enormity of something too huge and terrible to grasp.

In light of the fact that your whole universe just died and you didn't, collapsing to the forest floor crying seems to be the appropriate response.   
You're not sure how long you spend huddled against a tree trying frantically to breathe, but it eases and you're present again. This hollow gnawing numbness settles decisively into your core, and you set off in search of the sound. It's probably just a hallucination, or an echo. 

There's no fucking way Esker survived that.


	2. Chapter 2

It takes a couple of hours to psyche yourself up enough to go and look for the source of the signal, and another to find it. The haunting familiarity of the smell of trees and undergrowth, and the crackling, hissing weight of the signalscope in your hands occasinally stuttering out a few bars of Esker’s song almost makes the whole experience worse, with the reeling nausea crushing in your ribs and making your head spin. Focus. Focus. Leaves and twigs snap and crunch underfoot. Blink. The sky is somehow both devoid of stars and so full of them it hurts to look. Breathe in, and the darkness around you swirls. Breathe out, and it recedes like a tide. Like a watcher, avoiding sight. Minutes or years spin past as you walk and no time passes because there’s no time to pass. The signal gets stronger, clearer. The darkness around you gets thicker, almost tangible, like it’s guiding you through corridors between pillared trees, ragged pennants of moss swaying in a breeze you can’t feel. Then an arrow looms out of the shadows, and you fall.

At this point, we zoom out. The Traveller, bless their heart, isn’t the most reliable narrator at the moment. Later, or now, or before, there’s a house. This house is on a hill overlooking a field of trees, with a landing pad behind, and a campfire in front. We could wax poetic about the quiet dignity of a sky of stars, the looming majesty of Timber Hearth below, or the simple kindness of a good person’s heart, but, well… now isn’t the time. Instead, let’s focus on the ship that just landed. A young Hearthian tumbles out, all ragged overalls and bright eyes and lop ears, scrambling to their feet and making a beeline for the house. Over the roar of the ship taking off again, we hear them yelling “Esker! Esker!” excitedly, over and over, brandishing a potted sapling above their head. An older Hearthian emerges from the house, accepts the enthusiastically-presented sapling, and sits by the fire. Skip forwards a while, and the pair are eating soup, Esker telling a story. The child listens, captivated, eyes wide. Eyes. Eye. 

In the centre of the universe, or outside it completely, a malestrom of raw existence swirls. A dilapidated shell of a ship lurches drunkenly into existence, miles above. Centimeters above. Laws of physics get a bit less “law” and a bit more “vague suggestion” here. The Nomai crew are all gone, except for the helmsman. He stands behind the shattered screen and looks out over what his species sought for centuries. Safety, the promise of a new life, a breakthrough. He sees no safety here, no breakthrough, no new life. Very shortly after, the helmsman is gone too. The Eye spirals, expands, contracts, pulsing with the concentrated vitality of a thousand possible universes as it devours what’s left of the Nomai vessel. It spikes outwards slightly, before settling back into an eye-wrenching whirl. Somehow, it seems expectant. An image forms in the nebulous depths. 

The image shows a forest. In the forest, a figure sprawls like a discarded doll. The Traveller lies, limbs all splayed, on a forest floor. They’re paler than they should be, and deep-blue blood seeps into the half-corporeal undergrowth from small wounds that creep across their arms and sides, from glass shards of their broken ship. Their first death was similar to this – a crash landing. Brittle Hollow’s variable gravity can be dangerous for an inexperienced pilot, and their ship, while advanced for their species’ understanding of technology, wasn’t exactly stable. They’d landed, thrown from the wreckage, on the edge of a hanging garden. No flowers had bloomed there in thousands of years, not since the Nomai descendants of the original escape pod finally succumbed to entropy of information and technology, scattered across the solar system. The dust thrown up by their landing was drawn into the black hole at Brittle Hollow’s core, and they watched it spiral, glittering in the light of the last few dying stars, into an abyss so black their eyes hurt. They lay there, broken and bleeding, until they ran out of oxygen.

This time won’t prove their death, fortunately, but they’re not exactly healthy. I’m afraid you’ll be stuck with me narrating for at least another hour or two – they need the rest. They may only have been awake for about three or four hours from the perspective of the normal timestream, but from their perspective it’s been nearly five years of constant temporal loop. This, as I’m sure you can imagine, has a profound effect on the psyche of anyone caught in it. I’d know. I’ve seen this before. However, you aren’t here to hear my standard-issue Tragic Backstory, so that’s as much as I’ll say for now. You’re interested in them. You want to know how their story ends. I absolutely understand that, and I celebrate your curiosity, but I have to ask…

Don’t you already know how this ends? 

Don’t you remember?

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing the first chapter at seven am after an all nighter and I'm hyped on caffeine so I apologise for any spelling mistakes! I hope y'all like my first multichapter fic! I know it's really, really short and i'm very sorry - the next chapter will be longer!


End file.
